I love collecting quotes: quotes that make me laugh, quotes that make me think, quotes that inspire me. I recently noticed that quite a number of the quotes follow a similar theme: you are what you think you are.

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus wrote: “Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

American philosopher and psychologist William James wrote, “People by and large become what they think of themselves.”

And in our own time, Apple founder Steve Jobs wrote,
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

All these quotes came to mind this week when I read about Aracely Navarro, a young woman from Denver, Colorado. The story about her valedictory speech at North High School last June is not breaking news—but it’s a timeless story.

Aracely is the youngest child of a single mother who not only had to fight poverty, but she also waged a decade-long battle against cancer. In fact, Maria was fighting cancer when she learned she was pregnant with Aracely. Despite being urged to have an abortion to give herself a better chance at survival, Aracely’s mother chose to continue the pregnancy.

But her challenges, and Aracely’s, did not end there.

Aracely grew up tough, and education was never high on her priority list. As she noted in her graduation speech, her goal as a freshman was to have a “good time,” so she began “cutting class, getting into trouble, and smoking pot.” She said she was “becoming a lost cause. . . . becoming hopeless.”

A suspension from high school, a move to a new school, and some caring teachers helped Aracely turn her life around. Now hope is her word of choice.

Yet even as she earned top grades—grades that eventually made her class valedictorian—Aracely still faced obstacles as she worked toward her new goal of attending college.

Her mother was still ill, and they were still struggling to live from day to day. College seemed to be a dream beyond her reach. With the help of her advisor, she applied for thirty scholarships. She received thirty rejections. With each rejection, Aracely said she cried and started to lose hope.

But each time that happened, she went back to her advisor the next day and continued the search.

Her persistence paid off. Aracely won a grant from the prestigious Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) program, a grant awarded to 1,000 high school seniors in the United States.

Now Aracely’s worries about money for college have vanished. The GMS scholarship will pay 100% of her undergraduate and graduate school tuition.

And what does Aracely plan to do with this opportunity?

She wants to give hope to people like her mother who suffer from cancer.

Aracely plans to major in environmental policy at Colorado College and devote her life to identifying and eliminating cancer-causing chemicals in the environment.

Not bad for someone who once considered herself a “lost cause.”

Have you ever felt hopeless? Do you think you are a lost cause? How can you turn that around? Who can you turn to for help?